THE TRIAL.
AT the immediate time of which we now write, there had been some very
aggravated instances of open resistance to the English and American
cruisers on the African station by the slavers who thronged the coast,
and the home government had sent out orders embracing extraordinary
powers, in order that the first cases that might thenceforth come under
the cognizance of the court might lead to such summary treatment of the
offenders, as to act as an example for the rest, and thus have a most
salutary effect upon the people thus engaged. It was under these
circumstances that Captain Will Ratlin found himself arraigned before
the maritime commission at Sierra Leone, with a pretty hard case made
out against him at the outset of affairs.
The truth was, he had not been taken resisting the attack of Captain
Bramble and his men, but his accusers did not hesitate to represent that
he was thus guilty, and several were prepared, Maud among the rest, to
swear to this charge. Indeed, Captain Bramble found that he had people
about him who would swear to anything, and he had little doubt in
proving so strong a case as to jeopardize even the life of his prisoner,
since many of his crew had died outright in the attack upon the "Sea
Witch," to say nothing of the seriously wounded. All that could
prejudice the court against the prisoner was duly paraded before the
eyes and ears of the individual members ere yet the case was brought
legally before them, and at last when Captain Ratlin was formally
brought into court, he was little less than condemned already in the
minds of nine-tenths of the marine court.
He was rather amazed to see and to hear the free way in which evidence
was given against him, corroborating statements which amounted to the
most unmitigated falsehoods, but above all to find Maud unblushingly
declare that she saw him in the fight, and that he shot with a pistol
one of the men whose name had been returned as among the dead, and that
he had wounded another. The girl avoided his eyes while she uttered her
well-fabricated story, but had she met the eyes of the young commander,
she would have seen more of pity there than of anger, more of surprise
than of reproach, even. But in the meantime, while these feelings were
moving him, the case was steadily progressing, and began to wear a most
serious aspect as it regarded the fate of Captain Will Ratlin.
There still remained one other witness to examine, whose illness had
kept him on board ship up to the last moment, and who it was said could
identify the prisoner as one of the party engaged in defending the deck
of the slaver. He was a servant of Captain Bramble's, had attended his
master in the attack, but having received a blow from a handspike upon
the head, was rendered insensible at the first of the action, and had
been carried on board his ship in that condition, from which state he
had gradually recovered until it was thought he would be able to testify
before the court at the present time. After a few moments of delay, the
man made his appearance, evidently not yet recovered from the fearful
blow he had received, but yet able to take his place at the witness's
post, and to perform the part expected of him.
No sooner had the court, through its head, addressed the witness, than
he answered promptly the preliminary queries put to him, while the
effect upon Captain Ratlin seemed to be like magic. Was it guilt that
made him start so, rub his eyes, look about him so vaguely, and then
sitting down, to cover his face with his hands, only to go through the
same pantomime again? We ask, was it guilt that made him act thus? The
judges noted it, and even made memorandums of the same upon their record
of evidence. It was observed as significant also by every one present.
Captain Bramble himself looked at the prisoner with surprise to see him
thus effected by the presence of his servant.
"For the love of Heaven!" exclaimed the prisoner aloud, as though he
could bear this intensity of feeling no longer, "who is this man?"
"It is my servant--an honest, faithful man, may it please the court.
Leonard Hust, by name, born in my father's service," said Captain
Bramble.
"Leonard Hust," mused the young commander, thoughtfully; "Leonard Hust!"
"Ay, sir," added Captain Bramble, somewhat pertly, "do you find any
objection to that name? If so, sir, I pray you will declare it to the
court."
"Leonard Hust!" still mused the prisoner, without noticing this
interruption. "There is a strange ring upon my ears in repeating that
name!"
"Prisoner," said the judge, "do you recollect having done this man a
severe and almost fatal harm in the late conflict?"
"I--I," said the young commander, somewhat confused in his mind from an
evident effort to recall some long-forgotten association.
"You will be so good as to answer the question put by the court,"
repeated the judge.
"The court will please remember that I hurt no one, and that I was not
even engaged in the action referred to. These good people are mistaken."
Now it was that the attention of all were drawn towards Leonard Hust,
who in turn seemed as much surprised and as much moved by some secret
cause as the prisoner had been. He hastily crossed the court room to
where the prisoner sat, and looking full into his eyes, seemed to be for
a moment entranced, while the court remained silent, observing these
singular manifestations, which they could not understand.
"Leonard--Leonard, I say!" repeated Captain Bramble, "what trick is
this?"
"Trick!" whispered the man; "trick, Captain Bramble! Tell me, sir, who
is that man?"
"Why, they call him Captain Will Ratlin, and we know him to be a
slaver."
The servant still hesitated, looking from the prisoner to his principal
accuser, the English officer, then at the court, and finally drawing his
master a little on one side, the man again went through the pantomime
described, and placing his mouth to his master's ear whispered something
which startled him as though a gun had been fired at his very ear. The
shock was like electricity, and made him stagger for support. Two or
three times he repeated "Impossible! impossible!" and finally begged the
court to stay the proceedings, as he was taken suddenly ill, and should
not be able to attend until to-morrow. Being the principal prosecutor
and witness, of course his presence was requisite to the progress of the
trial, and therefore as he made this request it was at once formally
granted, and the court adjourned for the time, while the prisoner was
remanded on ship-board for safe keeping until the next day.
That the reader may understand the singular conduct of both the young
commander and Leonard Hust, he must follow the latter worthy into his
master's private room in the government house, where they proceeded at
once after the occurrences described.
"In Heaven's name, Leonard, what do you mean by such an assertion?"
asked Captain Bramble, throwing himself into a chair, and wiping the
cold perspiration from his face.
"I mean, sir, that the man on trial to-day is no more nor less than your
brother!"
"Charles Bramble?"
"Yes, sir."
"How strange is all this. How know you beyond all cavil, Leonard?"
"By the scar over the right eye. You gave it to him yourself. Don't you
remember, sir, just previous to the dog affair, for which he ran away
from home!"
"By Heaven! I believe you speak truly; and yet how strange, how more
than strange it all is, that we should meet again in this way!"
"It quite nonplussed me, sir. I thought he was a ghost at first."
"Strange, strange!" mused the elder brother. "In those days, long ago in
our childhood, he crossed my path constantly, and here he is again
athwart my hawse. By Heaven! but it is strange--wonderful, that fate
should have thrown him and Helen Huntington together again, and that
neither should know the other; and yet not so very strange, for she was
but eight years old when Charles ran away. Yes, he thwarted me then, for
even in childhood the girl fancied him above me, and now she affects him
even in his fallen fortunes."
"What shall we do, sir, now that master Charles has turned up again?"
asked Leonard Hust, in his simplicity. "We cannot testify against him
now, sir."
"No, no, no!" said the elder brother, hastily, "he must not be further
examined."
"How he has altered, sir, only to think," continued the servant; "why,
when he went away from Bramble Park, sir, he wasn't much more than nine
years old."
"Yes. I remember, I remember, Leonard," replied his master, hurriedly,
while he walked the apartment with quick, irregular steps. "I remember
only too well."
This was indeed that elder brother who had, when a boy, so oppressed, so
worried, and rendered miserable his brother Charles, as to cause him in
a fit of desperation to stray away from home, whither he knew not. His
parents saw now--alas! too late--their fatal error; but the boy was
gone, no tidings could be had of him, and they believed him dead. The
honest tar, whose yarn the attentive reader will remember, as given on
the deck of the "Sea Witch," spoke truly of his commander. He had, years
before, strayed alongside a vessel, as has been related, from whence he
hardly knew himself, or was afraid to say. Hunger and neglect even then
had greatly changed him, and he shipped, as has been related. The fall
he got at sea threw a cloud over his brain as to past recollections up
to that time, and here if the wish ever possessed him as to returning to
his early home, he knew naught of it.
When he heard the voice of Leonard Hust in the court, it seemed to
strike upon some string in memory's harp, which vibrated to old familiar
recollections, and the more he heard him speak the more the sensation
came over him which led to the demonstrations which we have already
witnessed. And yet he could not recall aught that would serve him as a
clue--the early injury to his brain seemed to have obliterated the
connecting links that memory could not supply. The reason, probably, why
the servant's voice and not the brother's thus recalled him was, that
the former had been kind, and his voice had ever sounded like music in
the neglected boy's ears, but the brother's voice had never had that
charm or happy association connected with it. As to little cousin
Helen,--as she was then called,--it was not strange that Miss
Huntington, after years of estrangement in India, meeting him under such
circumstances, himself so changed, should not have recalled enough of
the past to recognize him; and yet we have seen that at times she dwelt
upon the tender accents of his voice like sleeping memories, herself
quite ignorant of the cause of this peculiar influence.
She was now with her mother on shore at the mission house, in an agony
of suspense as to the result of the trial which was taking place. She
feared the worst, for Captain Bramble had taken measures to instruct
those about her to their effect that the prisoner would be found guilty,
and either strung cup by the neck at once, or be sent home to England
for the same purpose. Mrs. Huntington felt sad and borne down by the
position of affairs--for although she did not understand her daughter's
sentiments towards Captain Ratlin, yet she recognized the fact of her
and her child's indebtedness to him, and that he had evinced the
characteristics of a gentleman.
"Mother, if they find Captain Ratlin guilty, what can they, what will
they do with him?" asked Helen Huntington anxiously of her mother, on
the day of the trial.
"Why, my dear, it is terrible to think of, but the penalty of such a
crime as is charged to him, is death; but we must hope for the best,
and--why Helen, how pale you look!"
"It was only a passing spasm, mother. I am--I believe I am already
better," said the daughter, in an agony of suffering that she dared not
evince.
"Come, Helen, lean on me and go to your bed for a while; these sudden
changes and so much exposure has rendered you weak. Come, my dear,
come."
And the poor girl, all trembling and pale, suffered her mother to lead
her to her chamber, where a gentle anodyne soothed her nerves, and she
soon fell to sleep. Had her mother not been little better than blind,
she would have easily read her daughter's heart, and have seen that she
loved with all her woman's soul the man who was that day on trial for
his life. What mattered it to her that he was nameless, a wanderer, a
slaver? She loved him, and that covered each and all faults, however
heinous in the sight of the law. She felt that it was not the outward
associations which made a man. She had looked beneath the surface of his
soul, and had seen the pure crystal depth of his manly heart--frank,
open, and as truthful as day itself. To her he was noble, chivalric and
true, and if all the world had blamed him, if all had called him guilty,
her bosom would have been open to receive him!
Could he have realized this as he lay in chains on board his elder
brother's ship--could he have known that he was really loved by that
fair, sweet and gentle creature, how it would have lightened the weight
of the iron bands he bore--how cheered his drooping spirits.